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Updated: June 11, 2025
She frowned into the slanting sunlight that made her brown hair look redder than it was. Suddenly her eyes widened, her whole face seemed to grow broader. She caught her breath and put out two hard-worked hands. “Why, it’s Jim! Anna, Yulka, it’s Jim Burden!” She had no sooner caught my hands than she looked alarmed. “What’s happened? Is anybody dead?” I patted her arm. “No.
She pointed into the gold cottonwood tree behind whose top we stood and said again, “What name?” We sat down and made a nest in the long red grass. Yulka curled up like a baby rabbit and played with a grasshopper. Ántonia pointed up to the sky and questioned me with her glance. I gave her the word, but she was not satisfied and pointed to my eyes.
She is too little to understand what you want of her. Let her alone.” At a look from grandfather, Fuchs and Jelinek placed the lid on the box, and began to nail it down over Mr. Shimerda. I was afraid to look at Ántonia. She put her arms round Yulka and held the little girl close to her. The coffin was put into the wagon.
The more our house was like a country hotel, the better I liked it. I was glad, when I came home from school at noon, to see a farm-wagon standing in the back yard, and I was always ready to run downtown to get beefsteak or baker's bread for unexpected company. All through that first spring and summer I kept hoping that Ambrosch would bring Antonia and Yulka to see our new house.
My first trip was to the post-office, and the next day I went over to take Yulka and Ántonia for a sleigh-ride. It was a bright, cold day. I piled straw and buffalo robes into the box, and took two hot bricks wrapped in old blankets. When I got to the Shimerdas’ I did not go up to the house, but sat in my sleigh at the bottom of the draw and called.
THE NEXT AFTERNOON I walked over to the Shimerdas'. Yulka showed me the baby and told me that Antonia was shocking wheat on the southwest quarter. I went down across the fields, and Tony saw me from a long way off. She stood still by her shocks, leaning on her pitchfork, watching me as I came. We met like the people in the old song, in silence, if not in tears. Her warm hand clasped mine.
The children were seated according to a system; a little one next an older one, who was to watch over his behaviour and to see that he got his food. Anna and Yulka left their chairs from time to time to bring fresh plates of kolaches and pitchers of milk. After supper we went into the parlour, so that Yulka and Leo could play for me. Antonia went first, carrying the lamp.
While we sat in the kitchen waiting for the cookies to bake or the taffy to cool, Nina used to coax Ántonia to tell her stories—about the calf that broke its leg, or how Yulka saved her little turkeys from drowning in the freshet, or about old Christmases and weddings in Bohemia.
I was afraid to look at Antonia. She put her arms round Yulka and held the little girl close to her. The coffin was put into the wagon. We drove slowly away, against the fine, icy snow which cut our faces like a sand-blast. When we reached the grave, it looked a very little spot in that snow-covered waste. The men took the coffin to the edge of the hole and lowered it with ropes.
When I got up on one of the stools and peered into it, I saw some quilts and a pile of straw. The old man held the lantern. 'Yulka, he said in a low, despairing voice, 'Yulka; my Antonia! Grandmother drew back. 'You mean they sleep in there your girls? He bowed his head. Tony slipped under his arm. 'It is very cold on the floor, and this is warm like the badger hole.
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